Okay, if you can’t handle that part of the metaphor, I’ll fix it for you:
You’re in a house with a fire in the kitchen laughing turning your nose up at your neighbor for being so utterly stupid to let their entire house catch on fire.
That better? Please don’t say your country is not technically on fire. I’m not tailoring the metaphor for you again.
Your country probably has almost or exactly as many deranged morons as we do here with MAGA, per capita. The difference is we’ve weaponized voter disenfranchisement and bipartisan hackery (crucially including gerrymandering), largely abandoned ethical journalism standards, and never really properly dealt with the aftermath of our civil war, what with shaming our traitors and educating and rebuilding the nation. We were able to get away with all of that because we toot our own horn so hard for so long about being the bastion of democracy, and the world largely agreed with us.
So we still have backwoods y’allQaeda training grounds who vote Trump because anyone with a (D) is the (D)evil, and their vote counts more than someone in an educated area due to the electoral college system.
TL;DR: MAGA isn’t special - other countries have AfD, FdI, etc., which are all rising in popularity despite you turning your nose up at us for us being uniquely ridiculous.
Authoritarianism is a spectrum. We are more authoritarian than ever.
That doesn’t mean we weren’t authoritarian before.
I have a feeling you knew all that and just wanted to fight CptOblivius, though.
Nothing popped off for the time they didn’t swear in Adelita Grijalva. What makes you think it will if that happens for someone else?
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within” ― Will Durant
Not really. All democratic countries understood the fragility and flaws of their systems.
Is that why pretty much every Western country but France went virtually all-in on investing in our armament without developing their own? Sounds like Trump 4D Chess to me.
The adults don’t want to crush a kid’s dreams. We hope you guys would believe it enough to make it mostly true.
Mocking hindsight. You say that because the dream turned out to be a fiction. If it had done better, you’d never have said this.
TL;DR: “I knew those were going to be the winning lottery numbers. Ignore that I bought another ticket number entirely.”
Most other western democracies have held them back to date, and they deserve credit for that. Even when right wing parties win, they are still largely constrained in what they can do.
No? Again, AfD, FdI, The Tories in the UK, etc. etc. are all gaining on rational, liberal democratic forms of government. They haven’t won yet, but they’re closing alarmingly fast.
TL;DR: You’re in a house with a fire in the kitchen laughing at your neighbor for being so utterly stupid to let their entire house catch on fire. Give it ten minutes and we’ll be in the same situation.
The irony, of course, is that you mock the American Exceptionalism that led to our imminent demise while implying we are unique in our failure, which makes you especially vulnerable to the same arrogant fall that we’re undergoing. As is the case in scams, the best marks are the ones that think they’re above getting taken advantage of.
While it feels deeply satisfying to say that and even applaud you, I’ll do a hot take:
Your country probably has almost or exactly as many deranged morons as we do here with MAGA, per capita. The difference is we’ve weaponized voter disenfranchisement and bipartisan hackery (crucially including gerrymandering), largely abandoned ethical journalism standards, and never really properly dealt with the aftermath of our civil war, what with shaming our traitors and educating and rebuilding the nation. We were able to get away with all of that because we toot our own horn so hard for so long about being the bastion of democracy, and the world largely agreed with us.
So we still have backwoods y’allQaeda training grounds who vote Trump because anyone with a (D) is the (D)evil, and their vote counts more than someone in an educated area due to the electoral college system.
TL;DR: MAGA isn’t special - other countries have AfD, FdI, etc., which are all rising in popularity despite you turning your nose up at us for us being uniquely ridiculous.
If it’s anything like my state’s Disorderly Conduct law, it’s a wide-reaching law with a lot of room for abuse.
For Disorderly Conduct, all a cop in my state needs is one (1) non-law enforcement person to say they were offended by your conduct, and it’s off to jail for you.
I used to think the same thing before I became a cop. Reddit was flush with what seemed like justified outrage at the obvious recursive and thus tyrannical nature of arresting someone for resisting arrest.
… then I found out some states call their Obstruction statute “Resisting (Someone Else’s) Arrest.”
Obviously this leads to a lot of confusion, anger, and division. Another fine example of how legislation can drop the ball on doing their jobs and leave law enforcement holding the bag of public ire.
I would be surprised if it is.
Some federal agents get temporarily deputized as local law enforcement in the areas they operate in (and vice-versa).
It’s not illegal for law enforcement to lie.
Between 1 and 2, I’d be amazed if anything criminal could be charged here.
-Ex-cop
This has to be a Trump->ICE quotas thing; nothing else makes sense.
90% of racists still believe there are “good ones,” and who’s more of a “good one” than a neuroscientist?
Just goes to show you that it’s never been about ridding the country of dangerous people.
I’m guessing there’s just so much money (and power) in that kind of thing that it’s simply here to stay.
Until now I honestly thought I’d have to host an Instance to create a Community, for some reason. Now I’m a bit embarrassed.
Thank you.
Edit for visibility:
This answer is the direction I chose to go in, mainly for simplicity’s sake.
If the fediverse gods are watching, it might be worth considering automatically making communities associated with people’s usernames. Maybe reserved automatically, but invisible unless you opt-in? That way nobody can create harassment communities targeting your username on your home instance. Just a thought.
My point is that we’re not so different.
Your point is that (Americans all think) we’re so different, despite me saying we aren’t and showing we aren’t.
Your version of the truth is much more convenient for you because it means you have nothing to worry about in your own back yard, so we’re not likely to see eye to eye on this any time soon.